In vitro diagnostics (IVD) allows labs to assist in the diagnosis of disease based on assays performed on patient fluid samples. IVD includes various types of analytical tests and assays related to patient diagnosis and therapy that can be performed by analysis of a liquid sample taken from a patient's bodily fluids, or abscesses. These assays are typically conducted with automated clinical chemistry analyzers (analyzers) onto which tubes or vials containing patient samples have been loaded. The analyzer extracts a liquid sample from the vial and combines the sample with various reagents in special reaction cuvettes or tubes (referred to generally as reaction vessels). In some conventional systems, a modular approach is used for analyzers. A lab automation system can shuttle samples between one sample processing module (module) and another module. Modules may include one or more stations, including sample handling stations, pipettes and testing stations (e.g., a unit that can specialize in certain types of assays or can otherwise provide testing services to the larger analyzer), which may include immunoassay (IA) and clinical chemistry (CC) stations. Some traditional IVD automation track systems comprise systems that are designed to transport samples from one fully independent module to another standalone module. This allows different types of tests to be specialized in two different stations or allows two redundant stations to be linked to increase the volume of sample throughput available.
In some conventional systems, a friction track, much like a conveyor belt, shuttles individual carrier mechanisms (carriers), sometimes called pucks, or racks of containers between different stations. Samples may be stored in test tubes that are placed into a puck by an operator or robot arm for transport between stations in an analyzer along the track.
Conventional friction track systems, however, are not scalable. Accordingly, when additional modules are added, the conventional friction track systems must typically be replaced. Because the conventional systems are large and complex, however, the replacement costs may be very expensive and tedious. Further, conventional friction track systems move back and forth in a linear direction, without the ability to change in a non-linear direction.